Earthmovers are clearing a 12-acre site as work commences on the Soldier On veterans residential community near Seabrook Village on Essex Road. That milestone was marked Saturday when local, county, state and federal officials gathered for a “celebration” of moving the $23 million facility closer to reality.
Among those in attendance were U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R, NJ-4), State Sen. Vin Gopal (D, NJ-11), and former Tinton Falls mayor Gerald Turning and former borough council president Gary Baldwin, a retired U.S. Air Force captain, both instrumental in helping find a location for the facility and supporting it through approval processes. The ceremony took place off site in Liberty Park on West Park Avenue in lieu of a traditional groundbreaking, primarily due to a lack of access and parking at the construction site, said Monmouth County Freeholder Lillian G. Burry, who spearheaded the effort to create the permanent housing complex for homeless vets for over a decade.
Officially called the Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Village in honor of a paralyzed Vietnam veteran who became deputy secretary of the Veterans Administration and helped open the first Soldier On community, the four-story structure will have 70 one-bedroom furnished units. Soldier On, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization with similar communities in Massachusetts and New York, works with Winn Development to arrange financing and engage in the construction aspect. Additional financing, secured over several years and multiple trips to Washington, D.C. and Trenton by Burry and project supporters, came from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency and the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.
Amenities will include a multipurpose community room, patio with grills, greenhouse and community garden, walking paths, communications technology and a Memorial Columbarium with an eternal flame where ashes of deceased residents can be interred. Support, therapeutic, wellness and life skills programs will be offered. Burry arranged for the county’s assistance with transportation via its SCAT program. While most occupants will be male, less than one dozen will be female, officials said, housed in a separate section with its own entrance and elevator. Current estimates have the doors opening within 18 months.
“Moving from a regimented life to one without the formal structure the military provides can present challenges the rest of us might find difficult to understand,” Burry said at the ceremony. “Because they don’t always come with outward physical signs, they can be doubly difficult to deal with. Fortunately, there are organizations committed to helping our veterans make a successful transition by aiding them with counseling, job training and housing opportunities. No organization does this better than Soldier On.”
Burry chronicled the long journey to bring the facility to Monmouth County, including original plans to locate it on the former Fort Monmouth, currently undergoing redevelopment. After several sites emerged but failed to gain traction, Turning and Baldwin offered to donate the borough’s Essex Road property.
“The site needed to have enough land and a welcoming setting with access to resources for residents,” Burry said. “Soldier On will build a first class facility.”
According to Soldier On CEO Bruce Buckley, this will be the largest facility the organization has built to date. Buckley recently took on the CEO title from founder and president Jack Downing.
“It is through Jack’s dynamic leadership that Soldier On is what it is today,” Burry said. Added Rep. Smith, “He has been a dedicated supporter throughout this process, and his work in Washington has been invaluable.”
“I am especially grateful to Lillian Burry for her extraordinary dream of a creating a Monmouth County homeless veterans housing initiative, and for her tenacity and skill in making it happen,” Smith continued, noting, “many setbacks along the way. Lillian has been the quarterback in the push to meet the compelling housing and service needs of homeless veterans.” Smith, a two-time chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, sponsored a 2001 law for homeless veterans authorizing funding for HUD’s Veteran Affairs Supported Housing program, which will be tapped as a source of future rental assistance funding for veterans who will be living at the complex.
“Soldier On has created world-class home ownership opportunities coupled with vital services for homeless veterans, and the impact has been enormous and life changing,” Smith said. Burry acknowledged the “strong and generous support” of others including Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and Charles Richman, New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (NJHMFA) executive director.
“There is no greater service a citizen of this country can render than service in the military,” Burry concluded. “In doing this they take on the highest responsibility of citizenship – defending our freedoms. They also accept the immediate risks and dangers that go with that decision.” She said there are an estimated 300 homeless veterans in Monmouth County.
“Our average resident has had a number of decompensating events,” Jack Downing told The Two River Times. “When they come into our care that ceases. We find ways to keep them so they don’t fail. Our ultimate goal is to provide homeless veterans with permanent, supportive, sustainable housing. Our mission is to offer a continuum of care.”
For more information, visit wesoldieron.org.
The article originally appeared in the September 17 – 23, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times. The original version can be found online at:
https://tworivertimes.com/veterans-village-construction-underway/